She’s Had Her Close Up—We’ve Had Enough

If the nation weren’t already in a foul political mood, it would still be a special kind of hell to have to suffer through the Bitter Betty Book Tour. But the two things combined together is just so 2017.

If you haven’t noticed, Hillary Clinton is making the rounds to promote her political alibi, What Happened. After watching some of her interviews, it seems apparent that Hillary’s book’s title is giving voice to the question that haunts the old gal day and night (except in her head it probably sounds more like “WHAT THE F*CK HAPPENED?!”). How did one of the best “on-paper” candidates with nearly $1 billion behind her effort still manage to lose the presidency to Donald Trump?

In a lengthy interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night, Clinton reprised her role of victim, martyr, and hero. This is the same Hillary Clinton we have watched for 25 years. Whether it was her failed health care plan, her husband’s infidelity and subsequent impeachment, her 2008 primary loss to Barack Obama, her unforgivable handling of the Benghazi terror attacks or her basement email server, Hillary is the best finger-pointer in a business filled with shysters who have Ph.D.s in Finger-Pointing from Low Politics U.

During the 40-minute pity party, Hillary tried to explain why she is on Cooper’s therapy couch instead of in the Oval Office. She identifies at least a dozen culprits in her Blame Game. The answer to her book’s central question (primal scream?) seems to amount to this:

After Bernie Sanders failed to unify the party—although it was clear in March that I would be the nominee—the Russians went online pretending to be Americans and make up bad stories about me, then they bought Facebook ads at the same time Wikileaks made John Podesta’s risotto-making emails public to cover-up Trump’s p*ssy comments and Jim Comey released his letter that swayed suburban Republican women to vote against me, but all Republicans were undergoing “heavy rationalization” because they wanted tax cuts and a Supreme Court nominee and whatnot, but then again some people didn’t vote which makes me mad and there was rampant voter suppression, endemic sexism and misogyny, and the idiot media. But the worst is the Electoral College amirite? Because it is an anachronism designed for another time . . . and oh, yeah, did I mention Russia?

Clinton pats herself on the back for braving Trump’s inauguration, humblebragging about how she attended out of a sense of duty to our country: “Look, I am afflicted with the responsibility gene. I did the right thing. I knew I had to go. I went to the lunch afterwards, I did everything you’re supposed to do.” She Went to Lunch should be the new, She Persisted.

Clinton bashes Trump’s inauguration speech as “divisive” and a “cry from the white nationalist gut” while again reminding anyone who has been living off the grid since November 8 that Trump did not win the most votes: “He didn’t win the popular vote, he squeaked through in the Electoral College. He had a chance to really fill the role [as president] and it didn’t happen that day.”

Aside from excuse-making and finger-pointing, that signature Clintonesque pathos is Hillary’s most unappealing characteristic. While she cloaks her agenda in the ruse of trying to help future female candidates navigate the bumpy road of electoral politics, this is clearly all about her. Her brand is bitterness, not empowerment. She complains to Cooper that she wants to explore what happened in the election because “I hope nobody ever faces what I faced.”

What is that, exactly? A rigged primary election designed to hand her the nomination? A powerful political structure—three decades in the making—that mostly capitalized on her husband’s name? An obsequious and dishonest national media committed to her victory? (Despite what she says about Trump’s news coverage, take a look at every major newspaper endorsement leading up to Election Day.) Hundreds of millions in easy campaign donations, not to mention immense personal wealth?

Future candidates can only dream of having her good fortune.

Clinton suggests running as a woman candidate is harder than running as a minority candidate. “There is a big difference between what motivates voters on race and what motivates voters on gender.” She then sadly transforms herself into a runner-up of the high school prom queen contest rather than a hardened professional who fairly and squarely lost the election to serve 320 million American souls: “When a man is seen as professionally successful, he is more likeable. As a woman becomes more professionally successful, she is seen as less likeable. When a woman advocates for someone else, people can really like you, like the job you’re doing. Then all of a sudden, I step into the arena.”

So here we have a purported hero of the modern feminist movement, making excuses about why people don’t like her and warning young women that if you are successful, you won’t be liked. What a shame.

She didn’t stop there. Hillary, who hasn’t worked in the private sector since Madonna ruled MTV, pretends to know the inner thoughts of every mid-level manager in America: “It’s true even for something as mundane as if a woman goes to her employer and advocates a raise for someone else, she’s seen as a great team player. If she goes and advocates for herself, it counts against her. But if a man goes and advocate for himself, hey, you know, the guy’s got guts, he’s willing to step up and ask for what he wants.” Grandma Clinton does not know this to be true because, again, she has not had to ask anyone for a raise since the 1980s. In any event, this is not what an alleged role model to women should say.

If you are hoping Bitter Betty’s Book Tour will be the last we hear from Clinton, think again. She took great umbrage (of course) at Cooper’s suggestion that she should step aside and let some new people infuse some fresh air into the iron lung of the Democratic Party. “I have a lot of experience and expertise and insight that I’m sharing with the world and particularly with Democrats,” she said. “I’ve got a new organization called Onward Together. I’m maybe out of politics as a candidate but I am still deeply committed to doing anything I can to make sure that we don’t lose ground to this divisive, bigotry and bias and prejudice and favoring the wealthy and the well-connected over everybody else that I see as the agenda of this White House.”

Hillary is the Democratic Party’s very own Norma Desmond. She won’t leave the stage after the lights have gone dark.